Presiding Judge of the Unified Patent Court responds to CIPA letter about representation rights of in-house attorneys

CIPA President Bobby Mukherjee has received a response from the Presiding Judge of the UPC Court of Appeal, to his open letter of last week setting out the case for in-house counsel to retain full rights of audience and participation as UPC representatives.

Dr Mukherjee’s letter, to Judge Grabinski and his CoA colleagues Judge Gougé and Judge Blok, related to a UPC decision in the Suinno Mobile & AI Technologies Licensing Oy v. Microsoft Corporation case, which, if upheld, would prevent patent attorneys working in industry from being able to represent their employers before the court.

Judge Grabinski thanked Dr Mukherjee for his letter but said that, because CIPA was neither a party nor intervener to the proceedings, and because neither the UPC Agreement nor the UPC Rules of Procedure allowed for an amicus curiae letter, it could not form part of the court’s proceedings. The Court of Appeal hearing is scheduled for tomorrow (29 January).

Dr Mukherjee said:

“While we are disappointed that the court cannot formally accept the points I raised in my letter, we are pleased to have been able to put the concerns of our members to the judges and to have them acknowledged.”